rosebud8

Please help! My Renaissance Poetry and Rhetoric professor wants me to complete a 10-page Bibliographic Summary Essay. I am not sure how to do this, if my format is correct, or if I am synthesizing my sources correctly. Can someone please help? I'd only show you the first few pages. Thank you!

I recently got accepted to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's PhD program in Creative Writing. They offered me a full tuition waiver, a teaching assistantship, and a 16,000/year stipend that is given annually. This is all great, but WHAT do you think, or have you heard about this program?? I am curious, because I would like to know. Would I have enough time to write? That is my biggest question. I keep hearing different things from people enrolled in PhD programs, that they often feel like they have too much to do, not enough time to write, etc., except I am someone who ironically thrives on structure and busyness, because it helps me do more. Please help? What have you heard about this program?

I recently got accepted to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's PhD program in Creative Writing. They offered me a full tuition waiver, a teaching assistantship, and a 16,000/year stipend that is given annually. This is all great, but WHAT do you think, or have you heard about this program?? I am curious, because I would like to know. Would I have enough time to write? That is my biggest question. I keep hearing different things from people enrolled in PhD programs, that they often feel like they have too much to do, not enough time to write, etc., except I am someone who ironically thrives on structure and busyness, because it helps me do more. Please help? What have you heard about this program?

Thanks, Edgirl. I think that is a good idea. The only thing is, retaking the test ASAP will not give me the better Quant score that I need. It is pretty clear that I need A LOT of review in this arena. My guess is at LEAST few months of steady practice and review. My instinct is to do this: to put EVERYTHING on hold and to take an online Kaplan course and REALLY review and practice the Quant, even the Verbal. I may just do that. The way I see it (and call it blind optimism, but I prefer the term "realism) that I basically have all my ducks in a row, meaning I have my recommenders selected and willing to assist, a strong undergrad and grad GPA, and good samples. Seeing as these positive factors are not going to wither up and die right before my eyes, I feel like it might be the best thing to put everything on hold, slooooow it down, take my time now that I actually have it, and practice that awful Math and yes, the Verbal as well, for maybe a couple of months. That way I can retake the test once again, maybe even one more time thereafter. Then I will apply in the Fall of 2013. Do you think that sounds amenable? It FEELS so! And thank you for your honesty. I wish someone--anyone-- else would have been that forthcoming!

I appreciate your honesty, edgirl. I too am fearing that fate, that I'll wind up spending copious amounts of money on application fees all in vain. I spent part of yesterday emailing ALL of the department chairs of ALL of the places that I wanted to apply to, asking them to tell me HONESTLY how much this Math score would hurt me. They all basically said the same thing: "blah, blah, blah, we look at your application holistically, so we encourage you to apply anyway it all depends on the committee that will be judging the applications," and so on. Only ONE person (whom I know personally) at ONE of the universities said that those scores would indeed hurt me, but my pubs might hopefully balance everything out and to apply anyway. I'm not summaring all of this to prove a point, only to ask you: do you think all of these chairs that are telling me to apply anyway are saying this to simply be salespeople for their departments? Do you think it would help to address the fact that my crappy Quant score is partly due to my having dyscalculia? Thanks so much.

I just took the GRE and did not do as well as I would like. I scored a 154 in Verbal and a 130 in Quant. I realized that I did not study very hard for the latter portion, as I plain did not have the time. I am pretty sure that I did really well on the Writing portion of the test. I am applying to several programs in English with a Creative Writing Emphasis. Also, I did terribly on the Lit Subject exam, as in I scored a 420. How much will these abysmal math and subject score and this slightly above average-though-not-stellar verbal score affect my admissions? I KNOW that the rest of my packet is strong; I already have a book published, am a good critical writer, and have written a strong personal statement.